ROSENCRANTZ Ay, that they do, my lord, Hercules and his load too.

HAMLET It is not strange; for mine uncle is King of Denmark, and those that would make mows at him while my father lived give twenty, forty, an hundred ducats apiece for his picture in little. ’Sblood, there is something in this more than natural, if philosophy could find it out.

A flourish for the Players

GUILDENSTERN There are the players.

HAMLET Gentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come. Th’appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony. Let me comply with you in the garb, lest my extent to the players—which, I tell you, must show fairly outward—shoutd more appear like entertainment than yours.

⌈He shakes hands with them⌉

You are welcome. But my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.

GUILDENSTERN In what, my dear lord?

HAMLET I am but mad north-north-west; when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.

Enter Polonius

POLONIUS Well be with you, gentlemen.

HAMLET (aside) Hark you, Guildenstern, and you too—at each ear a hearer—that great baby you see there is not yet out of his swathing-clouts.

ROSENCRANTZ (aside) Haply he’s the second time come to them, for they say an old man is twice a child.

HAMLET (aside) I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players. Mark it.—You say right, sir, for o’ Monday morning, ’twas so indeed.

POLONIUS My lord, I have news to tell you.

HAMLET My lord, I have news to tell you. When Roscius was an actor in Rome—

POLONIUS The actors are come hither, my lord.

HAMLET BUZZ, buzz.

POLONIUS Upon mine honour—

HAMLET Then came each actor on his ass.

POLONIUS The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastorical-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men.

HAMLET O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!

POLONIUS What a treasure had he, my lord?

HAMLET Why,

‘One fair daughter and no more,

The which he loved passing well’.

POLONIUS (aside) Still on my daughter.

HAMLET Am I not i’th’ right, old Jephthah?

POLONIUS If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I love passing well.

HAMLET Nay, that follows not.

POLONIUS What follows then, my lord?

HAMLET Why

‘As by lot

God wot’,

and then you know

‘It came to pass

As most like it was’—

the first row of the pious chanson will show you more, for look where my abridgements come.

Enter four or five Players

You’re welcome, masters, welcome all.—Iam glad to see thee well.—Welcome, good friends.—O, my old friend! Thy face is valanced since I saw thee last. Com‘st thou to beard me in Denmark?—What, my young lady and mistress. By’r Lady, your ladyship is nearer heaven than when I saw you last by the altitude of a chopine. Pray God your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring.—Masters, you are all welcome. We’ll e‘en to’t like French falc’ners, fly at anything we see. We’ll have a speech straight. Come, give us a taste of your quality. Come, a passionate speech.

FIRST PLAYER What speech, my good lord?

HAMLET I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted, or, if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleased not the million. ‘Twas caviare to the general. But it was—as I received it, and others whose judgements in such matters cried in the top of mine—an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember one said there was no sallets in the lines to make the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of affectation, but called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it I chiefly loved, ’twas Aeneas’ tale to Dido, and thereabout of it especially where he speaks of Priam’s slaughter. If it live in your memory, begin at this line—let me see, let me see: ‘The rugged Pyrrhus, like th’Hyrcanian beast‘—’tis not so. It begins with Pyrrhus—‘The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms, Black as his purpose, did the night resemble When he lay couched in the ominous horse, Hath now this dread and black complexion smeared With heraldry more dismal. Head to foot Now is he total gules, horridly tricked With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, Baked and impasted with the parching streets, That lend a tyrranous and damned light To their vile murders. Roasted in wrath and fire, And thus o’er-sizèd with coagulate gore, With eyes like carbuncles the hellish Pyrrhus Old grandsire Priam seeks’ So, proceed you.

POLONIUS Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion.

FIRST PLAYER ‘Anon he finds him,

Striking too short at Greeks. His antique sword,

Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,

Repugnant to command. Unequal match,

Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide;

But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword

Th‘unnervèd father falls. Then senseless Ilium,

Seeming to feel his blow, with flaming top

Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash

Takes prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear. For lo, his sword,

Which was declining on the milky head

Of reverend Priam, seemed i’th’ air to stick.

So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,

And, like a neutral to his will and matter,

Did nothing.

But as we often see against some storm

A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,

The bold winds speechless, and the orb below

As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder

Doth rend the region: so, after Pyrrhus’ pause,

A rousèd vengeance sets him new a-work;

And never did the Cyclops’ hammers fall

On Mars his armour, forged for proof eterne,

With less remorse than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword

Now falls on Priam.

Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods,

In general synod, take away her power,

Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,

And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,

As low as to the fiends!’

POLONIUS This is too long.

HAMLET It shall to the barber’s, with your beard. (To First Player) Prithee, say on. He’s for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps. Say on, come to Hecuba.

FIRST PLAYER

‘But who, O who had seen the mobbled queen’—

HAMLET ‘The mobbled queen’?

POLONIUS That’s good; ‘mobbled queen’ is good.

FIRST PLAYER

‘Run barefoot up and down, threat’ning the flames